Planning for and Managing Change

In Academic Libraries

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 Managerial Functions

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 Why Plan?
 Want to plan change, not become a victim of change
 planning is an effort to anticipate future change
 Gives the organization a sense of direction
 Involve staff in decision making
 Helps coordinate the different functions and
departments
 Facilitate control and demonstrate accountability

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 Manage Change
 Do this by:
 delegating decision-making; empowering the staff
 increasing staff flexibility -- decline of specialist and rise of
generalist
 structuring to respond to quickly changing user needs
 creating and then focusing on a user-centered culture

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 Factors in Planning
 Time frame
 Collecting and analyzing data
 Levels of planning in the organizational structure
 Flexibility
 Accountability

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 Types of Plans
 Overall strategic plan
 Annual budget/operations plan
 Collection development plan
 Information technology plan
 Development (fund raising) plan
 Staff development (training) plan
 Marketing plan
 Building / facilities plan
 Instructional plan
 Evaluation or outcomes assessment plan

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 Planning Process
 Systematic process, primarily five steps
 situational and environmental analysis
 development of organizational direction
 formulate strategy
 implement strategy
 control, feedback and evaluation

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 Planning Process
 Identify a planning team that will be responsible for carrying
out the major planning phase and will involve other work
teams and task forces at appropriate times

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 Planning Process
 Conduct environmental scanning
 SWOT analysis (identify strengths, weaknesses within the
organization; opportunities and threats from outside the
organization)
 self-analysis
 external PEST
 political issues, including the parents attitude towards the library
 economic force, looking at general economic conditions and trends
 social forces, including the norms and values of the local culture
 technological forces, change in IT

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 Planning Process
 Identify the needs of the various end users and other
stakeholders
 Identify the organizational culture and values or assumptions
that are the organization’s guiding principles.
 Formulate the vision and mission statements that identify the
library

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 Planning Process
 Develop goals and objectives
 Develop strategic and action plans
 Implement the strategic plan
 Monitor, evaluate, and adjust the plan as objectives and
activities are accomplished and priorities shift

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 Planning Techniques
 Management by Objectives (MBO)
 merges organizational goals and objectives with individual goal
setting
 establishes objectives and approaches them as a team over a
stated period of time
 objectives must be measurable, with time limits, and they must
require specific and realistic action
 is a form of participatory management because it involves
everyone, to an extent, in the management process

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 Planning Techniques
 Total Quality Management (TQM)
 used by libraries to emphasize quality, especially customer
services
 focus on the customer in the development of products and the
delivery of services
 be constantly aware of process both in development and
delivery, and vigilant for opportunities for improvement
 libraries became more interested in quality, customer service,
teamwork and getting things done right the first time

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 Planning Techniques
 Forecasting
 a process of projections or predictions
 predictions are opinions about facts
 projections are based upon systematic review
 forecasting are predictions based upon assumptions about the
future
 scenario planning is the generation of multiple forecasts of
future condition followed by an analysis of how to respond to
each scenario

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 Scenario Planning
 Emerged in 1960s, used by Royal Dutch Shell to survive oil
crisis of 1973.
 Involves examining the range of options and influences
confronting us and establishing stories of how each option
could play out.
 Disconnecting from present to engage with future
 Identifies major forces and guides decision-making

 Probable, Possible, & Preferable Futures

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 Steps in Scenario Planning
1. Identify and choose the central point or decision to be
made
2. Identify the key forces in the environment
3. List and analyze those driving forces
4. Rank the forces
5. Choose the main themes or assumptions to develop the
scenarios
6. Complete scenarios

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 Steps in Scenario Planning
 Starting with your central theme, choose the two most
important independent variables that will affect that topic.
 Use the two variables to form a matrix that will result in four
scenarios.

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 Matrix for Journal Collections
Scholarly communication
Publishers still control
is cheaply/ freely
most access, money is
accessed- budget money
available but most goes
is freed up for other
to maintaining vendor
purposes
contracts

Scholarly communication Publishers control access

is cheaply/ freely and budgets have been
accessed, but little money severely cut. Maintaining
is available so decisions current levels of access is
need to be made about not possible.
re-allocation

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 Responding to Scenarios
 Once scenarios have been developed, teams engage in
developing responses to each possible future.
 We might debate the “probability” of each scenario, but
 Emphasis should be on devising strategies for being successful
for every case.
 Types of strategies
 Robust- hold up well in all scenarios, or hold up well in some
and are indifferent in others
 Contingent- hold up well in some scenarios but could cause
problems in others
 Losing propositions-ill-advised under all scenarios

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 Responding to Strategies
 Don’t just plan- take action/ make decisions
 Focus on robust strategies, but invest in contingency plans

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 Components of a Planning Document
 Mission Statement
 a mission statement discusses what the library is or does
 usually identifies critical values and principles, such as “free
access” and “lifelong learning”
 these values are sometimes found in a separate statement

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 Components of the Document
 Vision Statement
 a vision is a statement of what the library wants to become, its
future direction.
 helps users understand the library’s intentions.
 becomes a focus for advocacy for years to follow

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 Components of the Document
 Goals
 broad areas we would like to achieve or change
 should be challenging but realistic
 Objectives and Strategies
 objectives are action-oriented, measurable and/or “budget-able”
initiatives and applications
 explain how the goals will be supported and user services
improved

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 Components of the Document
 Activities / Action Plan
 specifies how the objective will be achieved, and who is
responsible
 establishes a time line for implementation
 expected performance measures for each objective and their
activities are identified
 identifies needed resources for implementation

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 Components of the Document
 Appendices
 current situation
 expected levels of user services provided
 relationships and partnerships
 historical information
 user surveys
 details concerning resources needed for implementation
 policies and procedures

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 Implementation of the Plan
 Plan is implemented
 Performance measures for each objective and their activities
are complied, compared, evaluated and reported against the
expected measure
 Opportunities for feedback are identified and provided

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 Apply an example of the System Model:
 Staff
 Collections Information
 Facility Services
 Technology

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 Summary
 Class discussion:

Lakos, A., & Phipps, S. (2004). Creating a culture of assessment:

A catalyst for organizational change. Portal: Libraries and the
Academy, 4, 345-361.

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